In this month's City Journal Kay Hymowitz writes about the backlash she received from an earlier column about how "too many single young males (SYMs) were lingering in a hormonal limbo between adolescence and adulthood, shunning marriage and children." Predictably, those dudes didn't want to hear about it. Did you know its all the fault of us women today, having "options" and changing our minds? Of course it is. It always is.Hymowitz actually quotes me from once upon a time, when I said:

I've gone through phases in my life where I bounce between serial monogramy, Very Serious Relationships and extremely casual sex. I've slept next to guys on the first date, had sex on the first date, allowed no more than a cheek kiss, dispensed with the date-concept all together after kissing the guy on the way to his car, fucked a couple of close friends and, more rarely, slept with a guy I didn't care if I ever saw again.

She responds, rhetorically:

Okay, wonders the ordinary guy with only middling psychic powers [who walked into a bar and met me], which is it tonight? In fact, young men face a bewildering multiplicity of female expectations and desire. Some women are comfortable asking, “What’s your name again?” when they look across the pillow in the morning.

Well, my response is: does it matter tonight? Should a guy treat me differently based on the multiplicity of expectations I might or might not have... or is he treating me based on the expectations that he has about me and about (maybe) what he wants? Maybe — and I know this might be terribly shocking to men — if you respectfully walk up to me and try talking to me without staring at my tits and trying to get me into bed, you'll find out without having to try that hard what kind of woman I am, and what I am looking for. And maybe what I'm looking for in a guy is based on the guy. Whoa, weird concept, I know, but maybe wanting to get into a relationship, or not, or to have sex with, or not, has to do with the person and not the penis — and maybe I'm looking for someone, regardless, that wants to be with me and not just another vagina-owner. This thing is, all these guys that Hymowitz quotes are really, really angry (and shallow) at some girl or group of girls who hurt them.

Here’s Jeff from Middleburg, Florida: “I am not going to hitch my wagon to a woman . . . who is more into her abs, thighs, triceps, and plastic surgery. A woman who seems to have forgotten that she did graduate high school and that it’s time to act accordingly.” Jeff, meet another of my respondents, Alex: “Maybe we turn to video games not because we are trying to run away from the responsibilities of a ‘grown-up life’ but because they are a better companion than some disease-ridden bar tramp who is only after money and a free ride.” Care for one more? This is from Dean in California: “Men are finally waking up to the ever-present fact that traditional marriage, or a committed relationship, with its accompanying socially imposed requirements of being wallets with legs for women, is an empty and meaningless drudgery.”

So, you went out with a shallow girl who only wanted a husband to pay her bills? Great. I went out with, this year alone: a guy who tried dating me to get me to vote for Obama; one who asked me out so that we could "get to know one another better" and took me to a loud dance club; a guy that called me up on the day of our second date to tell me that he knew I was going to fall for him and thus he didn't want to go after all; a guy who asked me to pay for everything when he asked me out; a guy who got annoyed at me for picking up the check when I asked him out; and on and on and on. You know what I have learned from that? That men are all different. Sort of like — gasp! — women. Oh, and let's not get started on the whole bullshit "nice guys don't get the girl" that all these guys re-hash. Well, yeah, sure, if The Girl is the head cheerleader (and she always is) — but were they ever asking out the girl who was President of Students Against Drunk Driving and the German club (i.e., dorky, awkward me)? Some of them were, sure, but I'll be damned if most of them aren't happily married to truly pleasant women who they adore. My photo albums from high school to this day are a virtual pantheon of sweet, dorky guys who asked me out or who I asked out, most of whom were actually as nice as they look and none of whom were bad boys. I dated two legitimately bad dudes in my life — the first one, in high school, I dumped rather ungraciously on our second date for grabbing my ass, and the second one more recently who I dumped, equally ungraciously, after about a month of jealous fits. One of the supposedly nice ones tells Hymowitz:

According to a “Recovering Nice Guy” writing on Craigslist, the female preference for jerks and “assholes,” as they’re also widely known, lies behind women’s age-old lament, “What happened to all the nice guys?” His answer: “You did. You ignored the nice guy. You used him for emotional intimacy without reciprocating, in kind, with physical intimacy.”

Oh, so, the only reason you were ever nice to a girl, the only reason you ever got close to a girl, was to fuck her? Don't worry, dude, you were never a nice guy. You probably didn't get fucked more because when you were holding a girl crying she caught you feeling up her boob. By comparison, at least a bad boy doesn't lie about his intentions or caring about your feelings. So, look, the problem is that there are no rules, and there is no one end game any more. Great. I'm glad there's not. I don't mind paying for dinner, or going to see a hockey movie on Valentine's Day, or calling first or opening my own fucking doors — and I don't mind being paid for, or getting roses or being called or having a door opened for me — and I am damn glad that I don't have to hang up my dating spurs at 31 and call myself a spinster and start knitting booties for my younger sister's eventual children. And, yes, it's more difficult because in the absence of rules and regulations, in the dearth of universal social expectations and proscribed life paths, no one knows what anyone else is really looking for in a two minute interaction. But this is solved by actually not expecting things from people you don't know, and by treating women as individuals worth more than the sexual pleasure they might or might not eventually afford you. And it doesn't help to bitch about how all women are shallow, money-hungry harpies who you're just going to game the way they've gamed you. Maybe you've been gamed because as a shallow, money- and pussy-obsessed prick who isn't interested in getting to know a person, you missed out on more than just being played. Love in the Time of Darwinism [City Journal] Related: Recruiting for the Church of Obama: A Dating Story [Glamocracy] Earlier: There's Casual Sex, And Then There's Casual Sex